"Editor and Communications Specialist, East Asian Institute"

Job Description

Established in 1997, the EAI promotes both academic and policy-oriented research on East Asian development. Our focus includes contemporary China (including Hong Kong and Taiwan), and China’s economic relations with Japan, Korea, ASEAN, and the world. The Institute collaborates with regional and international institutions, organise conferences and provide insights that inform public policy.

The East Asian Institute (EAI) at the National University of Singapore is seeking a candidate with a strong Editorial and Communications background with an interest in foreign affairs and public policy to join our team.

The successful candidate will work in collaboration with EAI management and research team, and play a key role in spearheading and fine-tuning the delivery of the institute’s research products.

Overall job objectives:

1. To ensure that EAI’s written content is edited to high standards, and remain relevant to EAI’s core audiences
2. Oversee the production process for EAI’s key research publications, namely EAI’s Background Briefs, Commentaries, Flash Briefs as well as the East Asian Policy open-access journal.
3. Contribute to the further development of our outreach and communication outlets.

Copy Editing

• Ability to edit for grammar, style, punctuation, syntax, usage, accuracy, structure, balance and fairness
• Train and mentor EAI’s researchers to ensure high standards in writing quality and adherence to house style
• Work closely with researchers, translators, and EAI’s communications team to enhance the readability of EAI’s research as well as overall presentation and user experience of EAI’s research products.
• Craft compelling headlines, headings, captions and illustration notes, with a keen awareness of how to appropriately position EAI’s research products based on EAI’s audience and operating context.

Publications:

• Oversee the production process for EAI’s open-access journal, East Asian Policy (EAP), published on a quarterly basis. This involves:
  • Copy and sub-editing academic journal articles, working with editors and authors to review drafts of articles for accuracy, format and style.
  • Typesetting publication materials.
  • Laying out pages on Adobe InDesign to arrange text/images in accordance with project requirements for submission to EAP’s publisher.
  • Proof-reading finalized product ahead of publication.
  • Potentially updating the design of EAP, either in-house or with the support of external vendors.
• Oversee the production process for ad-hoc EAI publications (e.g. books/monographs), which involves close coordination with EAI’s research team as well as contracted academic publishers.

Qualifications

• Relevant bachelor’s degree in humanities (political science, economics, international relations) or communications with 10 years’ work experience in academic publishing or media/journalism.
• Meticulous with an excellent command of English.
• Keen awareness of current affairs and public policy developments, particularly political and economic developments in Northeast Asia (including China, Korea and Japan).
• Strong understanding of the priorities and interests of the core audience of EAI’s research products.
• Ability to meet tight deadlines and project-manage across multiple tasks.
• Familiarity with the academic publishing process.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office (Word/Excel) as well as design and publishing software, particularly Adobe InDesign.
• Basic knowledge of Adobe Photoshop.
• Proficiency in Chinese (verbal and written) will be an advantage, for ease of communication and coordination with EAI’s translators for bilingual publications.
• Be self-motivated and a team player.

Application Process:

Interested candidates should submit their CV, a cover letter.